Disclaimer: i do not own, nor claim to own, anything strawberry panic. it all belongs to the respective creators.
Chapter One: New Sister, New School
"Astraea Hill?" Nagisa exclaimed looking up to the cathedral top, just visible through the tops of the trees. "No way, It's that far?" She asked, looking up the huge hill and just barely making out the school on top of it.
"Of course it's that far." Sakura said, looking away from the hill indicated and to her adoptive sister.
Sakura's previous adoptive sister, Mizuki Kusumoto, had been in a car crash and died a year ago. Nagisa, one of Sakura's friends at the time, had kept Sakura from falling out of the window in her hospital room after she had fallen asleep sitting on the windowsill. After that Sakura was in her debt, so when the question of where Sakura would go was raised, she opted to live with Nagisa and her parents for a while before she went back to her biological family, Sakura still had problems with them despite the fact that she had made up with her biological sister Sachiko Ogasawara.
"But it's so far!" Nagisa whined as they continued walking up to their new school, dragging Sakura back out of her pains of the past and back to the excitement of the present.
"You're just lazy is all." Sakura said, poking Nagisa in the back, Nagisa was only a year younger than Sakura but the two got along and acted as though they were the same age. "Oh my gosh!" Sakura said looking at her watch. "What time did your aunt say that school started?"
"Nine, why?" Nagisa answered looking at her older sister like she was crazy, Sakura never forgot anything.
"Because it's quarter to nine now!" Sakura exclaimed.
"EH?" Nagisa asked. "We're gonna be late! Come on, hyaku, hyaku!" She yelled as she dashed ahead of Sakura.
"Nagisa! Matte!" Sakura yelled, running as fast as she could to try to catch up with her sister, Nagisa had wheels when she wanted them.
By the time Sakura had reached the top of the hill, Nagisa had already started running ahead because she was so excited about the uniforms. *Of all things to get excited about* Sakura thought sweat-dropping as her sister ran ahead looking left and right and obviously not the front as Nagisa suddenly ran off the edge of the road, disappearing into the trees.
"Nagisa!" Sakura yelled, running up to the place where Nagisa had disappeared. *Why now?* Sakura asked herself as she began a fast-paced, more controlled descent to find her sister. At the bottom Sakura looked around, no sight of Nagisa. Sakura sighed, how was it that Nagisa always got herself into situations like these? "NAGISA!" Sakura yelled, as she walked around aimlessly, attempting to find her sister before school started.
Sakura eventually came to a beautiful lake with golden-yellow sand all around it and she could spot the cathedral right across it. *She wouldn't have gone in, would she have?* Sakura asked herself as she found footprints in the sand and watched them disappear, close to the water. *No,* she decided. *Nagisa would have gone right back to the school, not for a swim.* with that Sakura kept walking along the shoreline, only to trip on her own two feet, as she has on numerous occasions, and fall face first into the cold, and surprisingly deep, lake. The shock of the cold made Sakura gasp which in turn led her to inhale a lot of water. She managed to pull herself up to the surface, hacking and coughing trying to catch her breath. Once she stopped spluttering, she did a few strokes to get back to where she could touch, and then hauled herself out of the lake, cursing her clumsiness and her inability to swim without inhaling five galleons of water.
Once on dry land, Sakura shakily stood to her feet, shivering despite the warmth of the sunny day. She took a few steps forward and collapsed. Her vision blurred and, before she realized what was happening, went black.
She was in the woods, walking and confused. "Where am I anyway?" She asked herself, in Nagisa's voice. Everything looked the same to her. Then a stream of sunlight hit her face and she found herself at the edge of a clearing with one tree in the center of it. She walked over to the tree and leaned against it, sighing. She heard a noise and turned to see a silver-haired, golden-eyed beauty, a girl maybe one or two years older than herself. "Ahhh!" She exclaimed, surprised to find someone else here, " Gomensai! I'm a new student here and I..." She got cut off as she had backed up so fast that her bag hit her in the face, the keychain she had given to Nagisa a year ago falling to the ground. As she sat up she watched the older girl pick up her keychain. "Arigatou." She said as the older girl handed her the keychain. Then something unexpected happened, she looked up into the girl's golden eyes and froze. *What's happening to me?* she thought. *Why can't I move?* As she stood there frozen, the older girl leaned in, closer and closer. *Why is this person...* As the thought passed her mind, she passed out.
"AHHHH!" Sakura sat bolt upright, heart pounding and head spinning. *What the hell was that?* Sakura asked herself, knowing the answer, even though she didn't like it. *More importantly,* She thought, shoving the thought of what just happened to the back of her head to deal with later. *WHO the hell was that?* As she thought this, the image of the girl with silver hair popped into her head and Sakura was filled with an uncontrollable anger. *I don't care who she is!* Sakura thought furiously. *How dare she do that to Nagisa! When I find her...*
"So you're awake."
Sakura jumped, yanked out of her thoughts and brought back to the present, and turned to the source of the voice that had spoken. It belonged to a girl with short blue hair and dark blue eyes in a black uniform. Sakura assumed that it was Miator's uniform as she remembered Nagisa's aunt telling her that Nagisa and her uniforms when they went to Miator would be black dresses. She also noticed that she was sitting up in a bed in what appeared to be a medical wing.
"Who are you?" Sakura asked, looking at the girl, guessing that she was at least a year older than herself.
"Oh, right, how rude of me." The girl said, taking a seat next to Sakura's bed. "My name is Miyuki Rokujou and I'm the Student Council President of Miator Girl's Academy. You are?"
"Sakura Kusumoto," Sakura automatically said, then mentally kicked herself for using Mizuki's name. "I mean, Sakura Aoi." She corrected herself, looking down at her hands. She was thankful when Miyuki didn't ask her why she changed her last name.
"Ah yes," Miyuki said. "You're one of the new transfer students right?"
"Hai," Sakura said. "I'm a second year high school student and my little sister, Nagisa Aoi, is a first year."
"Oh? Nagisa-chan is your sister?" Miyuki asked, sounding somewhat surprised.
"Hai, why? Do you know her?" Sakura asked, looking at Miyuki instead of her hands.
"Not yet no," Miyuki said. "But she's been here in the infirmary all day, just like you, because she passed out in the courtyard this morning and had been sleeping until just a little while ago when her roommate took her on a tour."
"Soka," Sakura said, not mentioning that she knew Nagisa had passed out earlier that day. "Sounds like Nagisa, she didn't get much sleep last night because she was so nervous about today. So why am I here then?"
"You don't remember?" Miyuki asked.
"No, not really," Sakura said, trying to remember. "I remember looking for Nagisa around the lake and..... Oh Lord. The lake! Of course!" She said, smacking her forehead with the palm of her hand as she remembered her worst klutz moment yet.
"Yes the lake," Miyuki said. "You were found along the shoreline by Etoile-sama as she was trying to shirk her duties again." Miyuki said this with some annoyance. "She brought you back here, and you haven't moved since...Tamao-chan thought you were dead when she came in here to get Nagisa-chan, the nurse said that if you had gotten here five minutes later, you would have died of hypothermia."
"Soka..." Sakura said, realizing that she must have worried Nagisa just as much as she had Nagisa's roommate. "I should probably go find Nagisa-chan then, she'll be freaked out, sometimes I think she's the older sister she worries so much." As Sakura stood up to go to the door, she realized that she was only wearing an oversized t-shirt. "Umm....where are my clothes?" She asked, looking around.
"They're drying; you can borrow that uniform there while we go to the dorms." Miyuki said, motioning to a set of clothes set on a chair on the opposite side of the bed. Sakura walked over and picked them up. She then went behind a curtain and began to put them on with some difficulty. "They may be a little big for you," Miyuki was saying. "You haven't been measured completely yet so we have been unable to order uniforms for you and your sister."
"Umm...Miyuki-sama?" Sakura asked before Miyuki could give her any more information, her uniform seemed wrong somehow.
"No need to be so formal." Miyuki said. "Just call me Miyuki, if you must use an honorific, then use –san."
"Hai, Miyuki-san?"
"Yes?"
"Can you give me a hand? My uniform seems wrong." As she said this, Sakura stepped out from behind the curtain and she could tell that Miyuki was trying her best not to laugh.
"It's wrong all right." Miyuki said, stifling her laughter and walking over to Sakura and beginning to unbutton the uniform. "You put it on backwards and...wow, how did you manage this mess? I can hardly blame you though, out of all three schools, Miator's uniform is the hardest to put on until you've had some practice."
"Arigatou," Sakura said, blushing slightly as Miyuki put her uniform on properly and began to button it back up.
"Not a problem," Miyuki said, and then stood back in front of Sakura to see how the uniform looked. "That's interesting." Miyuki said.
"What is?" Sakura asked, looking down at her as she didn't have a mirror.
"I thought this uniform would be too big on you as it belongs to Etoile-sama, a sixth-grader, a third year high school student, but it seems to fit you quite well. Come, I'll take you to the uniform shop and we'll order you're uniforms, I'm sure Tamao-chan has already done so with Nagisa-chan. After that I'll take you to the dorms."
"Hai," Sakura said as she followed Miyuki out of the room.
After they had ordered Sakura's uniforms, two winter sets and two spring sets, Miyuki and Sakura started heading towards the Strawberry Dorms.
"There is a strict curfew at the dorms." Miyuki told Sakura as they walked. "You must be inside the dorm grounds by 6:00pm. If you don't follow this curfew you will be locked out of the grounds until the head sister comes to unlock the gate. You will then go to her office and be punished by her. It is wise never to get on her bad side, understand?"
"Hai, Miyuki-san," Sakura said, making a mental note to make sure that Nagisa always got to the dorms in time for curfew. After that, the two fell into silence and Sakura reflected on the vision she had earlier. She couldn't call it a dream anymore because she knew that it was a vision she got from Nagisa's point of view, even though she hadn't had one for almost a year, she knew a vision when she saw one. What bothered Sakura the most though was not the fact she had a vision, it was the vision itself and the mysterious girl who may, or may not, have kissed Nagisa, the thought made Sakura's blood boil with fury.
"Here we are." Miyuki said, bringing Sakura out of her thoughts. She looked ahead of her to see that they were standing in front of a gorgeous building with a green roof and surrounded by a wall and many trees. A pathway from the open gates led up to the building. "Come along." Miyuki said. "I'll take you to your dorm room."
As they walked inside, Sakura noticed lots of stairs and that the hallways were empty. "Where is everyone?" She asked.
"Either in the lounges, their rooms or the dining hall." Miyuki answered. "It is almost six-o-clock and six-thirty is dinner."
"Soka..." Sakura said, looking around and drinking in every detail of the building's architecture. After climbing a few sets of stairs, Miyuki stopped in front of a closed door and handed Sakura a key.
"This is your room," she explained. "I apologize but you do not have a roommate as before you transferred the fifth-grade class had an equal number of boarding students.
"That's fine," Sakura said. "I can't get around a lot during the first few days of a new month due to a condition I've had since I was little. A roommate for me would just make things awkward. But thank you for the concern."
"Soka." Miyuki said, wondering what Sakura's condition might be, but decided not to press the matter. "All right then, as I said before, dinner is at six-thirty in the dining hall. You can change back into your regular clothes as I see a first-grader brought them up here for you," she said, motioning towards one of the two beds where Sakura's clothes, now dry, lay. "Or you can stay in that uniform, whichever you decide. If you will excuse me, I have to go pick up your sister, I'll let her know that you're all right."
"Arigatou, Miyuki-san." Sakura said, bowing as Miyuki left. After the door closed, Sakura flopped on one of the beds and fell asleep.
When Sakura woke up it was six-twenty-five. She realized she only had five minutes to shower and get ready for dinner as she couldn't go looking like she had just jumped in a lake, even though technically that was what happened. After showering she changed back into the clothes she was wearing when she fell in. They consisted of a green and cream, long-sleeved sailor collar shirt, white socks that reached her knees, black leather ballet style dress shoes and a pleated green skirt that went just below her knees. Sakura looked in the mirror and sighed, recognizing that, wearing her Lillian uniform with her blonde hair black again and her violet coloured contacts gone, she looked exactly like her biological sister Sachiko, who would now be Rosa Chinensis, along with Rei, now Rosa Foetida and Shimako, now Rosa Gigantea of the Yamayurikai at Lillian, as Youko, the former Rosa Chinensis, as well as the other two Rosas, Eriko the former Rosa Foetida, and Sei the former Rosa Gigantea, had graduated and moved on to university.
*I wonder what they're all up to.* Sakura thought and immediately shook her head. *Don't think about that,* she ordered herself. *That's all in the past, you have to move on.* With that in mind, Sakura walked out of her room and headed towards the dining hall, wondering what Nagisa's roommate was like.
A/N: so here's chapter one, yay! chapters two and three are already written, but you'll have to R + R if you want to get them and find out what happens next!